Senators Discriminate
Against Bush Nominee Because of His Religious Beliefs

by Matthew Craig

A New Visions Commentary
paper published November 2003 by The National Center for Public
Policy Research.
Reprints permitted provided source is credited.

Not many people can boast resumes like Alabama Attorney General
William H. Pryor's. Unfortunately, discrimination plagues him
in the U.S. Senate and may block his appointment to the 11th
Circuit Court of Appeals.

Pryor graduated magna cum laude and was
first in his class at Tulane University Law School. After clerking
for Appeals Court Judge John Minor Wisdom, a renowned civil rights
advocate, Pryor spent seven years practicing law and teaching
at the Cumberland School of Law. In 1995, he became Alabama's
Deputy Attorney General, and was elected Attorney General two
years later.1

As Alabama's chief law enforcement official,
Pryor has vehemently fought discrimination. He was the driving
force behind the successful campaign to remove a racist clause
from the state constitution that banned interracial marriages.
He was also instrumental in bringing to justice two members of
the Ku Klux Klan guilty in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
in Birmingham that killed four black girls in 1963.2

Ironically, Pryor himself is now a victim
of discrimination. Instead of bias against his skin color or
ethnicity, liberal U.S. senators are trying to deny Pryor a federal
appeals court appointment largely due to his strong Catholic
beliefs.

Anti-Catholic discrimination has a long
history in the United States. Al Smith's 1928 presidential campaign
is a prime example. A prominent New Yorker, Smith was the first
Catholic nominated to run for President by a major political
party. He faced ardent opposition primarily amongst vocal minorities
in the South and led by the Ku Klux Klan.3 Thomas J. Heflin, former U.S. Senator from Alabama,
summarized this sentiment during a 1928 Senate speech by asserting
that Smith's impetus to run was that "the Pope wants to
control this country."4
Some prominent political analysts of the time even argued that
adherence to the Roman Catholic Church prevented loyalty to America.5 Many claim Smith lost because of his religious
beliefs.6

After Smith's defeat, it took another
32 years for the nation's first Catholic President - John F.
Kennedy - to be elected.

Since then, anti-Catholic sentiment has
largely evaporated. Even the South, which had once been the home
of anti-Catholicism, has changed its perspective. Pryor's election
in Alabama is evidence enough. But the idea that devout Catholics
cannot fully participate in our free society still seems prevalent
in the minds of some U.S. senators.

Many liberals in the Senate are opposing
Pryor and other devout Catholics for little more than their beliefs.

Despite accusations to the contrary,
Pryor's Catholicism has never stopped him from being an impartial
arbiter of the law. Pryor, for example, previously opted to support
a limited partial birth abortion ban instead of more stringent
guidelines proposed by his party and supported by his religious
beliefs because he believed it was more consistent with Supreme
Court precedent.7

An ironic aspect of this situation is
that many of the liberals fighting Pryor's nomination because
of his beliefs are Catholic themselves. These Catholics, however,
appear to leave their professed beliefs at the door.

Regardless, strong religious beliefs
don't necessarily hinder an official's performance in government.
We need look no further than the Founding Fathers to find a group
of dedicated ministers and statesmen who produced one of the
least sectarian documents in history, or the explicitly religious
underpinnings of the anti-slavery movement in the 19th century
or Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose faith-based ideals furthered
the modern era of civil rights.

According to Senate Judiciary Chairman
Orrin Hatch, Catholics are not the only ones being discriminated
against. Baptist nominees are also beginning to face similar
prejudices.8

America's original settlers fled their
homelands for an uncharted continent to escape religious persecution.
The U.S. Constitution explicitly states, "no religious test
shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public
trust under the United States." Is this basic American freedom
being violated? You be the judge.

###

(Matthew Craig is a member
of the African-American leadership network Project 21 and student
at Yale University. Comments may be sent to [email protected].)

Note: New Visions Commentaries reflect the views of their author,
and not necessarily those of Project 21.

Footnotes:

1 "William H. Pryor Jr.
Resume," U.S. Department of Justice Office of Legal Policy,
Washington, D.C., available at http://www.usdoj.gov/olp/pryorresume.htm
as of August 11, 2003.

2 "Bill Pryor: A Public Official Dedicated to Following
the Law," The Committee for Justice, Washington, D.C., 2003,
available at http://www.committeeforjustice.org/contents/reading/pryor.pdf
as of August 11, 2003.

3 Kevin P. Gorman, review of Governor Alfred E. Smith: An Everyman
For President, The Wild Geese web site, available at http://www.thewildgeese.com/pages/brasmith.html
as of August 11, 2003.

4 "Warning Against the 'Roman Catholic Party': Catholicism
and the 1928 Election," History Matters, American Social
History Project/Center for Media and Learning (City University
of New York, Graduate Center) and Center for History and New
Media (George Mason University), available at http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5073/
as of August 11, 2003.

5 Charles C. Marshall, "An Open Letter to the Honorable
Alfred E. Smith," The Atlantic Monthly, April 1927, available
at http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/27apr/marshall.htm as of
August 11, 2003.

6 "Alfred Smith," Grolier Presents The American Presidency,
2000.

7 "Bill Pryor: A Public Official Dedicated to Following
the Law."

8 David Fredosso, "Are Liberals Imposing a Religious Test
on Judges?" Human Events, August 1, 2003, available at http://www.humaneventsonline.com/article.php?id=1409
as of August 12, 2003.